It's clear the media is not where it should be in Trinidad and Tobago, so we thought, why not give them some feedback?
Send your comments on the T&T media to d.martine6@gmail.com

Thursday, August 16, 2007

NEWS BLUES

So many new television stations, so little time to watch! It feels like news overload sometimes. Almost everyone has a morning show, a lunch time newscast, news updates on the hour, 7pm news, 9pm news and 10pm news. Can't say we have a favourite for any one of them though.

Let's start with the morning fare. Ho hum Deborah Maillard and her side kick who looks like he would prefer to be on a surf board somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Boring. A lot of producers feel that the way to go is to buy a big screen tv and have presenters stand/sit in front of the tv and say the first thing that pops into their heads at 6am. No producing skills necessary so we hope they are being paid accordingly. Then there's CNC's morning show with the new co host Cordielle Street. She is very pretty, very eloquent, not afraid to tackle the big boys on hard issues, but often looks out of place next to Dr. Clifford. Which one is the square peg?

Gayelle is a story by itself. Again the format (which they have fine tuned) is sit in front of the camera, open up the phone lines and talk. (Sigh!) Come on people, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Robin and Company. Do any of these sound familiar? Even though their anchors also sit in front of the camera and talk to the audience, there is evidence that some thought went into the shows. There are pre-packaged segments, live segments with reporters outside as well as experts on the set, structure (first ten minutes for discussion on topic x, then toss to reporter's story) etc. There are lots of examples that need to be looked at.The presenters also move within the sets, eg. Robin Meade on CNN's Robin and Company usually starts the show behind the news set, then she might move to the seating area with the couch, then she tosses to a reporter's story while standing in front of the flat screen. It's one way to keep the viewer interested.

We know CNMG has the Morning Ritual, but we'll save comments on it for next time.

And last but not least is TV6's Morning Edition. Andy Johnson is the coolest talk show host we have ever seen. Nothing ruffles him. Good if you're dealing with a very rowdy guest. Dr Morgan Job, since you are not learning from Andy in that respect, maybe you should subscribe to cable and set your television to turn on at 10.30am for BBC's Hard Talk (Channel 27) with Stephen Sackur. Recently Stephen was interviewing Pakistan's Foreign Minister, and he kept interrupting the minister to ask a new question. Naturally the minister got upset and told Stephen not to say another word until he was finished making his point. Well Stephen was not offended (even if he was he did not show it) and did not shout at his guest. He politely allowed him to make his point, then jumped right back into the fray with another loaded question. At the end of the interview, he thanked his guest and they shook hands.

Media Watch doubts very many people want to see your verbal boxing matches before breakfast. Maybe TV6 would consider giving you a slot after the 10pm news?